


Bread and Roses

by madame_faust



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Labor Unions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-16
Updated: 2017-09-16
Packaged: 2018-12-30 13:18:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12109557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madame_faust/pseuds/madame_faust
Summary: This is just a snippet from a larger AU - Christine is a recently arrived immigrant who is being used to scab during a general strike at the Changy Textile Manufacturing Company. The strike turns violent and she is caught in the middle, but taken from the crowd of angry strikers by a labor organizer and former mule spinner, badly burned in a fire a year prior.





	Bread and Roses

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, this is just some catharsis for me - I was plotting out this story when I got home and found out my house had been broken into. Basically this is my 'how DARE you interrupt my train of thought' revenge. I have no idea if I'm going to expand it, but I really wanted to get it down.

She was shaking, poor thing. This little slip of a girl in her uniform, paid for with money that did not exist. Might not ever exist.

Erik knew their game well. Turn up at the docks. At the station. Where are you bound, young lady? Sprichst du Deutsch? Parlez-vous français? Tu parli italiano? Você fala português? Eydish? Polsku?

Why go all that way? Why take that train? Do you have family waiting? No? Oh, you poor dear. Poor, poor dear. Come with me. I know a boarding house! The mill has jobs, good jobs, good pay. Come, come. Viens avec moi. Vieni con me. Venha comigo.

They would have sent a sweet, grandmotherly type after a girl like this. A lost little girl.

The bosses, men of breeding that they were, used these little girls as human shields. Surely no one would attack an innocent child. With her wasted frame and big, blue eyes.

But desperate people would do terrible things. The kindest dog could be starved into viciousness. Beat an animal enough, you can’t be surprised if it bites. Men are not animals, but if men are _treated_ as animals, they might well bite back.

“I will take you home,” he said slowly in English, not sure what language she spoke - she might have been anything, Irish, English, Scandinavian, German, with that blonde, blonde hair of hers. “Soon. When you hear the bells chime four.”

He would have held up four fingers, but she was frightened enough without looking at his hands. He wasn’t even sure how much she heard him, let alone how much she understood. Still, he tried to keep his tone kindly, his voice gentle. It was the one thing the bosses hadn’t taken from him - his voice. And he would use it. He would force his words down their throats until they choked.

Four was the break time. The morning shift would be leaving, the evening shift arriving. She could slip into the crowd and disappear. Just another laborer, weary from the day; no one would even look at her.

“What is…” she spoke up abruptly, in _English_ so he knew she understood. The accent he could not place. Polish? Perhaps. “Why were the men - the people - so...I just want to work. To go to work. Why…?”

  
But she exhausted her vocabulary and looked at him, in helpless despair.

“I need money,” she said, eyes filling with tears. “For bed, for clothes. I need money.”

“So do we all,” Erik agreed, approaching, but not drawing too near. After the morning’s violence, even if he did not stand before her, bandaged, gloved, and horrifying, he would not blame her in the slightest for being afraid. “We all _need_ money. That’s what they’ve done to us, that’s how they’ve fixed it. We need money, they have money...it’s so simple. So devilishly simple.”

“They?” she asked innocently. How long had she been in America? A day? “Who?”

“The bosses,” he replied curtly. “The owners. They turn the workers against one another - we should be united! Those men who cursed you and threw rocks, they should know better, but...listen. They are not your enemy. The men who _hired_ you are the enemy, as difficult as that may be to...to understand.”

“But…” her chin trembled and tears began to fall from her blue, blue eyes.

Erik held himself back; his touch would not comfort her. If he approached and lay a hand upon her shoulder or _worse_ , attempted to draw her into his arms, she would recoil. She might turn from sorrow to hysterics and he could not risk her screams leading to his discovery. However much he might have liked to offer her some little consolation.

“We are not _nothing_ ,” Erik said, trying to keep the anger from his voice. _They_ used the workers’ anger against them. Called them mad, drunk, foolish, greedy. After all, were they not _benevolent_? Did they not give them the _jobs_ they so desperately needed. Was that not what they came to America for?

But this sweet-faced little girl, she had no idea. And he must tell her without _frightening_ her.

“What is your name?” he asked.

The girl sniffed, but composed herself enough to whisper, “Christine.”

A pretty name, he thought. A very pretty name. “And where do you come from, Christine? Where is home?”

A long pause. Then, “Sverige. Sv - Sweden.”

“Ah. Listen to me, Christine, from Sweden. They give us crumbs for our sweat and blood - then call us lazy and greedy when we complain that it is not bread,” he said. She looked at him through her tears, her pale brow furrowed, the shadows under her eyes a contrast with her pale skin and yellow hair. Were it not for the drab clothes she wore, her air of melancholy burden, she might have been very beautiful. “But it is not for bread alone that...we are not - no _human being_ is made to live on scraps. There must be more. Even for such as us, we _deserve_ more. Bread and roses, too.”

Christine lowered her eyes, hands twisting before her. She bit her lip. “I came to work,” she said, haltingly. “I only came to work...not to fight. Why do they - why do you - want to fight?”

Erik closed his eyes, “Oh, my dear girl. We none of us came to fight. But...here, do you like music, miss?”

“Music?” she asked, looking up at him in confusion. “I...yes. I like music. But why - ”

Erik rose and sat down behind the piano. The violin was beyond him now, but the piano he could play. His fingers could press down upon the keys and while he’d lost dexterity in his right hand, he could _still_ play. They’d not taken quite everything.

“Listen,” he said. “Listen...and understand.

 _Pendant que nous marchons, marchons dans la beauté du jour_  
_Un million de cuisines sombres, un millier de greniers mornes_  
 _Sont touchés par des rayons de soleil radieux et soudains_  
 _Alors qu'on nous entend chanter, du pain et des roses, du pain et des roses!_ ”

He had translated the poem, written the music to fit. Music everyone understood. Music was the universal language.

Bread and roses.  
Pain et roses.  
Pão e rosas.  
Pane e rose.  
Pan y rosas.  
Chleb i róże.  
Brot und rosen.  
Khleb i rozy.  
Broyt aun royzn.

There were new tears in her eyes when he finished. Her hands were trembling.

“How do you say it in Swedish?” Erik asked gently.

“Bröd och rosor,” Christine said, very quietly. “I understand. I do. But...but, mister...how do I _eat_?”

Erik aborted a motion to run his fingers through his hair, remembering. He lowered his hand to his lap and sighed. “Today we starve so that tomorrow we might eat.”

She shook her head and closed her eyes. It wasn’t enough.


End file.
